Why do I blog?

Late night has always been an interesting time for me. It’s the time when I get my best creative ideas, when I mull over the events of the day or week or month, when the whirl of emotions dissipates and I am alone only with my thoughts. As you can see, it is also the time when I become philosophical. 🙂

Have you ever gone to Wikipedia to look up say arch welding and through many links and clicks, find yourself reading an article about the Dalai Lama a long time later? My brother always makes jokes about that but I find myself doing something similar all the time. Tonight, what started off as just taking a quick peek at some WoW blogs lead me down the road (many hours later of course) to a question for myself: why do I blog?

This question began to plague me after I had glanced over the forum posts and comments of WoW bloggers, giving each other hints as to good blog directions, writing post titles, advertising your blog, etc. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with these discussions but I began to wonder if I really needed to absorb all of this information. I mean I just blog for fun right? I’ve even tinkered with the possibility of advertising on Petoholics, to help make a little money. Maybe even put up a donation link on my character and pet name tools, to get a little something back for all the work that I’ve done and am doing.

But is that what I really want? I’ve always been the advocate of doing-things-that-you-like, as opposed to doing-things-that-you-feel-you-have-to-do. What’s the fun in having a hobby just because you think it’s what’s expected of you? In terms of myself, do I blog for me or because I think I have an audience to please?

I am a writer at heart, a dreamer who finds the best way to put down her thoughts is in the form of words. I can barely draw beyond stick figures and any person who has talked to me over the phone or in person will most likely tell you that I’m quiet and would rather listen than talk. Hand-written or typed, this is my medium. It gives me the opportunity to think things out before I write them, to consider which words are best. I write stories sometimes, some short and some so long that they will probably end up being novels by the time I’ve finished them. My stories may come from the multitude of plots that are always dancing around my head, but this blog…is something else.

This blog is a way for me to tell about the adventures I have in WoW, about the personalities that I have created through my characters and pets and the people I have met along the way. There are times when I try to post useful information or tools, such as the naming tools. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that these are the more popular aspects of Petoholics. And I have to admit that seeing all those pretty stats about the number of site visitors and incoming links makes me feel really really good. Popularity shouldn’t control what we do or who we are but it can sure make us feel better about ourselves. But at the end of the day, it’s my stories and thoughts about WoW that keep me going. Otherwise, why would I have even writing this post right now? It’s that need to get my words out there, to make them available even if no one reads them. Sometimes I lead myself to believe that I should add more pretty pictures, to draw more visitors in. But that is not me. I like pictures too, but I feel they should just supplement my writing, add to the story if you will, not be used just to make people read what I write. A picture can be worth a thousand words but as you can see, I can think of way more than a thousand words.

To some people, WoW may just be a bunch of pixels on the screen, a way to show off accomplishments such as gear and items. Sometimes I myself get caught up in all the shiny epics and wanting to show up the next guy. But it’s the beauty of the game, this strange Azerothian world that you can lose yourself in with all its plot twists and races and landscape and characters. My hunters and their pets aren’t simple DPS machines but characters that have their quirky traits and unique personalities even if I’ve never roleplayed with them. They are their own stories unfolding before my very eyes, stories that need to be written about or I’ll go crazy from not being able to have an outlet. Petoholics Anonymous is that outlet.

So for whatever reason you read Petoholics and have managed to read through these ramblings, you should know that this is who I am and this is why I blog.

Thank you all! It was wonderful to write; it allowed me to put my muddled and tired thoughts into words and sort through them a little better. And as much as I do blog for myself, everyone’s encouraging words certainly raise my spirits all the more.